


Time Will Not Heal A Dead Boy's Scars (time will kill...)

by secretfeanorian



Series: the worst things in life come free to us [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2192670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretfeanorian/pseuds/secretfeanorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's hardly the only Avenger with a sullied past and why should he be treated any differently than the rest of them? His decision to flee seems to darken him only a little bit more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Will Not Heal A Dead Boy's Scars (time will kill...)

_this is gospel for the fallen ones locked away in permanent slumber assembling their philosophies from pieces of broken memories.  
_

* * *

Maglor doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. With each passing day, he feels his anticipation growing. But for what? Healing? He can’t seriously be expecting the time to heal the longing he has to return to New York. Time doesn’t heal anything, ever. Time is a crucial part of healing, but time can’t heal on its own.  
  
He doesn’t end up leaving Rivendell for another fortnight and when he does leave, he leaves with his thoughts much heavier than they had been when he had entered the valley.  
  
He’s running, but he’s always been running and it’s never really bothered him before now. But he’s so very tired of running and Steve had had a point when he’d said that none of them exactly had the cleanest slate. Some (Steve) had cleaner slates then others, but in the end, all of them have messed up. All of them have blood on their hands.  
  
By the time Maglor leaves Rivendell, he is beginning to seriously reconsider his decision to leave the Avengers behind permanently. The question is no longer whether to return or not, but now; would they accept him back?  
  
Before he leaves, he stops one last time in the courtyard and watches the statue of Aragorn and Arwen. He doesn’t say anything, nor does he have an epiphany, but when he turns his back on the ruins of his foster son’s city, his heart is lighter than it has been in a while.  
  
He’s still not completely sure where exactly he is, but the next town he comes across is in Utah. He doubts Rivendell had been in that state, but who knows. He hasn’t had an acute sense of direction in a rather long time. He has enough that he doesn’t always get lost, but he doesn’t have the sense of place that allows people to identify exactly (or very nearly so) where they are on a map.  
  
Once he has mentally placed his location, he heads east, with a slight tilt towards north in his path. He doesn’t rush along his way – in fact, he travels at probably the slowest rate he ever remembers traveling in the many years he’s spent wandering.  
  
He doesn’t really think about why that might be, but if he did, he’d come to the conclusion that he is once again stalling. He doesn’t think about it though, and he continues to slowly make his way across the States.  
  
He’s pretty sure it’s Minnesota he stops in, but he can’t be completely sure. He’s been meandering around the country for the previous mouth, with only a general destination in mind. By the hundredth lake he sees, he’s more sure he’s in Minnesota and by the time he’s seen two hundred, he’s paused somewhere along his road.  
  
He sits on the ground and he closes his eyes, breathing in deeply. It’s not that he’s tired, but something in him said ‘stop’ and so he stopped. After an hour of sitting, an eagle lands a short distance away from him and caws softly.  
  
Maglor’s eyes snap open and he almost jolts himself onto his feet before he even locates the source of the sound. After he locates it, he finds himself a bit **more** inclined to leave, but the eagle takes flight only a few moments after Maglor sees her.  
  
She circles around over the elf’s head a few times and then flies off. He watches her go a bit warily, but when another hour passes and nothing happens, he gets up and keeps walking.  
  
The next day, a thunderstorm rolls in and Maglor finds himself forced to find shelter and wait out the storm. There are no towns or farms nearby and so he crouches down under some rocks for the five hours it takes the storm to pass by.  
  
He emerges wet and a bit grumpy, but keeps walking. His legs are sore, but that’s more because of the crouching then the walking and after a day or so of walking, the soreness has mostly faded.  
  
The closer and closer and closer he gets to New York, the slower and slower and slower his pace becomes until he’s only traveling one or two miles a day instead of fifteen or twenty. The closer he gets, the more nervous he becomes and a few miles outside of New York, he stops altogether.  
  
He’s in a town somewhere that he doesn’t know the name of and he sits in the streets on the sidewalk (on the side of the road) and thinks. He would sing, except that he really, really, really doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, so he ignores the urge and doesn’t sing.  
  
Around midnight, he dozes off and jolts awake with the sun. His hood had slipped off overnight and he pulls it back up, but doesn’t stand. People pass by him and pointedly don’t look at him and Maglor remembers once being a little bothered by that, but now he’s almost grateful. If no one looks at you, then no one can recognize you.  
  
He spends the majority of that day sitting and thinking, but by the time the sun rises on the next day, he’s left the relatively smallish town behind.  
  
He enters New York City a few days later, but doesn’t go straight to the Avengers Tower. He meanders around the city, getting lost in the crowds and listening to anything related to the Avengers.  
  
What he learns is that while a few people are calling for his arrest, most seem to be saying what he had thought (and used to convince himself to return) that ‘he’s hardly the only Avenger with a sullied past’ and that ‘why should he be treated any differently than the rest of them?’ (Part of what they are saying is hypocritical, Maglor thinks) His decision to flee seems to darken him only a little bit more.  
  
Most people, however, don’t seem to think any lesser of him for running and the overall verdict is that the Avengers are still looking for their missing teammate. The news reporters (and the Internet. And just, people in general) are no longer calling him the Avengers’ “ex-teammate”, but their “missing teammate”, which Maglor finds encouraging.  
  
Still, though, he doesn’t return to the tower. He continues to wander through the streets and he contemplates. He’s not completely sure what exactly he’s contemplating, but he finds himself humming half-forgotten songs from his childhood, so he figures it’s probably the past he’s contemplating.  
  
He knows that, should he return to the tower, he’ll have to talk about his past; tell the whole world those treasured (and not so treasured) memories he’s kept to himself for so many centuries and he’s just not ready to do that yet. He’s not ready to return and so he remains on the streets, waiting. 


End file.
